It is semicircular, the size of a quarter, made of an amber translucent material, and has a very deliberate looking worked quality. The two large faces (the top and the bottom) are nearly perfectly parallel and the edges are chipped all the way around to one of two distinct angles. I picked it up wondering what it was and wanting to find out more about what human had made it.
It didn't take much work to figure it out. I asked Tim Rast, a local craftsperson, archaeologist and flintknapper what he made of it and he got back to me in no time flat.
According to Tim:
"Its definitely a French gun flint. A very nice one. Here's a link with photos of a few more modern reproductions of French and English gunflints.
"When gun spalls are made the original flake is trimmed to a standard size and shape by taking off lots of little chips around the edge. Thats the shaping that you noticed on your flint. There are also small chips removed when the flint is used in the musket. There will be a relatively flat unworked surface in the middle and lots of little flakes around the edge creating the square or half-moon shape. The underside will be almost completely flat.
"Muskets that used gunflints started to replace matchlock muskets in the 1600s and they started to be replaced by percussion cap firearms in the 1800s. I have a reference that says that large scale gunflint manufacture started to decline in France in the 1820s, although at least one family was still shipping gunflints to Chile in the 1920s. Your flint could date to pretty much anytime during that period (17th-19th century), which also coincides with the time of the French Shore."
Cool! Thanks Tim!
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